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Revisions

I always performed well in school so the necessity for or desire to spend time revising work did not come naturally. I often felt a one and done approach worked for papers, but my Dad made it clear to me that writing is rewriting – and if one wanted to improve their writing, they needed to be rewriting in order to do so. The message was received and I managed to continue to improve my writing in college even without Dad’s copious edits and attentive draft review. My instructors in graduate and undergraduate school commented on the quality of my writing. One instructor told me”I think your thesis is terrible, but the paper is so well written I’m going to give you an A.” My writing is strong because I learned the important lesson of revision and even though patience is not my native nature, I could see in writing how making changes and giving yourself time could lead to a stronger end product. (Though truth be told I’m still too impatient to do that with this blog. 🙂 But that is the blogging medium, no?)

Last October I learned I have an endocrine disorder that impacts a number of systems but most saliently how my body manages insulin. Meaning responsible monitoring involves close attention to what I eat and when and how it impacts my glycemic load. And people, I loves to eat (not a typo, plural is intentional), so adjusting my expectations about what I can eat and why and when is a necessary challenge.

It’s May now, so I’ve spent six months digesting this news and reality and it’s left me with an important observation. I cook and eat better with restrictions. I was devastated at first thinking I would never eat baked goods again – and that isn’t really the case. Adding firm parameters around what I eat and when and why increases the creativity I take with food – which you’d think I’d learn from years and years of watching Top Chef, but no. In the last six months I developed a mindful set of habits that help me to make consistently good food choices, and therefore allow for equally regular (and prudent) deviations. These changes are a process and will continue to be so – but I’m confident in my ability to revise. Even though revising my picture of myself and my dining landscape is challenging and truly against my impatient nature, it’s a worthy pursuit and likely to lead to a stronger end product.